They might then have
derived wisdom from these military and naval events, and not improbably
they would have been less audacious in staking their success upon the
issue that the war was a failure, and would have so modified that craven
proposition as to make it accord with the more patriotic sentiment of
their soldier candidate. But the fortunes alike of the real war and of
the political war were decidedly and happily against them. Even while
they were in session the details of Farragut's daring and victorious
battle in Mobile Bay were coming to hand. Scarcely had they adjourned
when the roar of thunderous salvos in every navy yard, fort, and
arsenal of the North hailed the triumph of Sherman at Atlanta. Before
these echoes had died away the people were electrified by the three
battles in Virginia which Sheridan fought and won in style so brilliant
as to seem almost theatrical. Thus from the South, from the West, and
from the East came simultaneously the fierce contradiction of this
insulting Copperhead notion, that the North had failed in the war. The
political blunder of the party was now much more patent than was any
alleged military failure on the part of its opponents. In fact the
Northerners were beholding the sudden turning over of a great page in
the book of the national history, and upon the newly exposed side of it,
amid the telegrams announcing triumphs of arms, they read in great plain
letters the reelection of Mr.
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